Postcards From Louisville

The Capital of Bourbon Holds Many Non-Bourbon Surprises.

Every time I travel to Louisville, Kentucky, the reason is the same: Bourbon. I have Bourbon business.

But, lately, on each trip, I discover a new bar that has, refreshingly, nothing to do with Bourbon. On my second-to-last trip this was Tartan House, a bar in the Butchertown neighborhood that focuses on, you guessed it, Scotch. A bold move in Bourbontown. On my most recent journey to the capital of corn whiskey I discovered that Louisville has an agave bar.

Pretty Decent is located in the Clifton neighborhood, right next to Bourbons Bistro. The latter is a bar that folks directed me to in 2008, on my first visit to Louisville, when I was forlornly casting about for any place that cared as much about cocktails as it did about whiskey. Pretty Decent is bright, white and airy, and is located behind a boutique plant shop. This put me in mind of Floreria Atlántico, a famous Buenos Aires bar that is also disguised as a florist. The dual concept is run by John Douglass and his wife. (The menu bar on the Pretty Decent website has buttons for “menus” and “plant care.”)

Douglass was behind the bar the night Imbibe editor-in-chief Paul Clarke and I took two seats at the bar after a hard day of Bourbon sipping. The turntable behind the bar was making the classic rock rounds of Billy Joel and Hall & Oates (“It’s ‘70s Night,” said Douglass), so I was in my comfort zone.